A number of processes related to the fulfillment of customer orders lend themselves to automation. For example, systems have been developed for (1) scheduling the shipment of goods to a customer and (2) managing customer accounts payable. More recently, an integrated system for managing the fulfillment of orders has become available. An example of such an integrated system is the SAP™ system (“Systems, Applications, Products and Data Processing”) offered by SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany.
Security functions in separate materials management and customer accounts-payable systems, providing safeguards against fraud and inappropriate business practices, can be inadequate when those systems are integrated (for example, into the SAP system). Each user (known to the system by his user ID) has a “security profile” listing the transactions he may approve or the tasks he is authorized to perform. Some of these transactions are incompatible, in the sense that having them under control of a single individual could result in abuse of the system. For example, a user authorized both (1) to approve the shipment of goods to a certain customer and (2) to adjust the amount owed by a customer, could fraudulently ship goods to himself free of charge. Furthermore, an individual with a single user ID but multiple security profiles could initiate a transaction under one profile, then instruct the system to perform an incompatible transaction appearing under another profile.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved security in an automated system for managing the fulfillment of orders, whereby the security profiles of users are analyzed and modified to prevent incompatible transactions by those users.